"We'll keep the Red Flag flying here!" - Warlord Soviets arrive

I had expected today's post to be a more in-depth overview/review of the new experimental close quarters rules from Forge World, Zone Mortalis. However, a speedy delivery from Warlord Games has scuppered that plan - in a pleasant way.

Along with my comrades-in-arms, Colonel Scipio and Brother Knight I've been embarking on a WW2 project...






My plan had been to get some early war French. I'm one of those strange people that likes the look of them, love the Schneider P16 half-track, and find the early war very interesting. However, with the Colonel going for some very nice later-war SS (intended to be primarily Latvians - see his posts here and here) and Brother Knight getting some lovely Fallschirmjager, I reconsidered. I considered the possibility a bit of alternate history, with the French lasting longer into the war, but decided to put them on hold (when I do get them they'll be doubling up as Vichy and the odd FFL squad occasionally).

A big interest of mine is the Finns, but with my 2 main opponents playing Axis (obviously there's the 44-45 Lapland War...) I decided to look elsewhere. I'd ruled out Americans (nothing personal) and considered British (intended to be Lincs or Notts & Derby Sherwood Foresters - both very dear to my heart). However, we share a general lean towards the Eastern front, and both myself and the Colonel share an interest in the Ruskies and I knew he was planning on getting some next - so I thought I would go for Russians (who will also pair nicely with my Finns when I get them).

Anyhoo, to the point, my Russians arrived today after only ordering them on Sunday. Bonus point number one. This is the first time I'd ordered from "Bolt Action" since they'd been bought out by Warlord. I don't know whether the sculpts have been altered at all (as they are currently doing with the Finns).

The first thing that is notable is there is a lot of very visible flash, including some hefty chunks, but it does all look pretty easy to remove. Out of 23 models there is only one duplicate and there is a nice variety of poses with a decent quality overall. There's a bit of a mix with the M35 and M43 gymnastiorkas, which is a good thing in my book. Really like the the eponymous red flag which has a raised hammer-and-sickle which makes painting easy and makes it look sewn on rather than painted - as it should be.

With the plan to play mostly squad-level games like Nuts! and platoon-level games like Troops, Weapons and Tactics, Platoon Forward and Disposable Heroes - I basically have my army sorted! Brilliant compared to the way GW is going these days (although I will only do Kill Team, Patrol Force and nothing above 1500 on the most part, thankfully I have a group of gamers with whom I have this option unlike many).

Of course the plan is to build them up, including a razvedchik scout squad and perhaps some ski-troops (Brother Knight was on about doing some of the infamous Russian patatroopers that deployed from the wings of TB-3 bombers....) and of course Colonel Scipio is doing some Ruskies next so we'll have a pool of minis to make use of whilst being able to split the cost.

Similarly, my next project is some German Volksgrenadiers and Volkssturm that can be mixed with the Germans of the others in larger games. I've already ordered these minis from Artizan so look out for a post on these and the one promised on Zone Mortalis